So this is what it comes down to: a former SEAL who participated in the mission to kill Osama bin Laden charges in his new book that the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people was simply killed when he stuck his head out of his bedroom door. He allegedly didn’t resist, as White House and Pentagon officials said he had in the hours and days following the May 2, 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The press goes wild:

SEAL’s book: Bin Laden shot on sight, the Washington Post says.

Osama bin Laden was killed by bullet to the brain before Navy SEALs arrived, book reveals, says the New York Daily News.

They’re all reacting to stories by the Associated Press and the Huffington Post, who bought copies of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden at local bookstores. Ex-SEAL Matt Bissonnette has written the book, published by Dutton, under the pseudonym Mark Owen. Its official release date was moved from Sept. 11 to Sept. 4 on Tuesday.

Bissonnette says he was right behind the “point man” as the SEAL team climbed the stairs in the bin Laden compound leading to his bedroom when he heard the muffled pops of a silencer equipped firearm. The point man, Bissonnette reports, fired when he spied a “man peeking out of the door” at the top of the stairs. The man – bin Laden – toppled back into the room. By the time the SEALs got to him, he had fallen to the floor with a bullet wound to the right side of his head. The SEALs trained their guns on the still-alive bin Laden and fired into him several times until they were sure he was dead.

Whether or not bin Laden was armed is irrelevant. The U.S. military considered bombing his compound to smithereens with him and his family inside it, and whether or not he was armed at the time would have been moot. But the U.S., to put it bluntly, wanted proof of bin Laden’s demise that a bombing could not guarantee. They wanted his corpse.

Most Americans cheered bin Laden’s death, and will probably cheer louder once they know how he died: as a cowering coward, with two women in his bed chamber.

The problem with the story as it is now being told is a problem we have lived with since the dawn of government: governments often fudge the truth. In fact, sometimes they lie. It appears that may have happened in this case.

Here’s what Battlelandreported less than 24 hours after bin Laden’s death, based on background briefings and interviews with military officers:

The SEALs fired hundreds of rounds as they blasted their way through the compound, clearing it room by room, until the top two floors of the main three-story building — where bin Laden was living with his family — were the only things left to be cleared. Bin Laden was killed near the end of the U.S. troops’ 40 minutes inside the compound, which was filled almost the entire time with gunfire. “The bin Laden family was on the second and third floor,” a senior Pentagon official said. “And so, without getting into operational details, those areas were cleared last.”

[White House anti-terror chief John] Brennan said the U.S. was prepared to take bin Laden alive, but that possibility ended when he fought the SEALs. “He was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in,” Brennan said. “Whether or not he got off any rounds, I quite frankly don’t know.”

A woman, in some accounts believed to be one of bin Laden’s wives, perished in the endgame. “She fought back when there was the opportunity to get to bin Laden,” Brennan said of the lone woman who died in the raid. “She was positioned in a way that indicated that she was being used as a shield, whether or not bin Laden or the son or whatever put her there or she put herself there…she met her demise, and my understanding is that she was one of bin Laden’s wives.”

We don’t yet know the full story. It’s coming out, as military accounts usually do, in bits and pieces. It does appear that the original, official account may have taken, shall we say, liberties with the truth. Like the blind men feeling the elephant, the more accounts of bin Laden’s takedown we get, the closer we will come to an approximation of what really happened.

But just as the White House can be criticized for hyping the drama inherent in bin Laden’s death, so too can Bissonnette be criticized for turning the SEALs into just another partisan faction.

“Bissonnette writes disparagingly that none of the SEALs were fans of President Barack Obama and knew that his administration would take credit for ordering the May 2011 raid,” the AP’s Kimberly Dozier writes. “One of the SEALs said after the mission that they had just gotten Obama re-elected by carrying out the raid.”

Having the nation’s most esteemed warriors broadcasting their political views does a disservice to them, the taxpayers who paid — and are still paying — their salaries and pensions, and the nation they pledged to serve.

Obama made the call despite much of the existing political staff in Washington being against it. Much of Washington was still reliving the ghost of Carter's failed expedition. Obama gets all the credit. He made the gutsiest call since Kennedy decided not to get dragged into a war with the Soviet Union.

Wow. You DON'T get out much do you? What are you thinking, these are little boys playing in the back yard with paintball guns? SEALS have the same relationship to your average "metromale" that a Canadian Alpha Timber Wolf has to a Beverly Hills Chihuahua puppy. Watch BUDS on the History channel sometime. Seals are the most highly trained, highly disciplined killers in history. In the near future when 300 SEALS goes up against the Persian Army (Iran) it isn't going to be the SEALS who lie "Obedient to Spartan Law." SOME of Spartan King Leonidas's 300 MIGHT have made it into BUDS, but I seriously doubt it. "Warrior" is used instead of "Superbly Disciplined Killing Machine" because it is SO much more palatable. But either fits very nicely. You should do a bit of research before you open your mouth and remove all doubt that you don't belong in this conversation.

Wolfs, Chihuahuas and undisciplined dogs like you. To wish a for another war is a clear demonstration that you have NEVER put your loser ass in harms way. The Seals are of course superbly trained and motivated as are Delta and the SAS. None of this mitigates the fact that your warmongering wish is the result of a stable or sane person.

She can wish upon a star all she wants, influence is not ultimate power. Only the president had the power to green light that attack. And by the way, I suspect the entire cabinet, including Agriculture, Energy, amp; HUD, wished the attack to happen. Doesn't amount to squat.

Who cares if he fought back? I do, for one. Gunning down an unarmed man is bad business, however you slice it. The fact that the highly-trained SEALs continued to fire into his body implies that the order was to kill, under any circumstances. When we, as Americans, allow our leaders to get away with killing unarmed men and women, children, civilians, funeral mourners, and people attempting to provide first aid, we cede our moral authority. Do we really want to be on the same ethical continuum as Al Qaeda?

As usual, Obama can't win. If they'd only captured bin Laden, and taken him captive--can you imagine all the hollering and cry-babying and caterwauling and crocodile tears that would've been going on? The President made a brave and bold and bad-ass call, the shot heard round the world, and rid the planet of bin Laden, once and for all, in one clean stroke. A call that his Republican opponent openly said he wouldn't have made, the pussycat. Not an insignificant thing to think about when you're thinking about who should be the Commander-in-Chief, in charge of our armed forces.

I see it as Bush who vowed dead or alive gave up on the 911 victims and focused on WMD in Iraq. Obama gave the nod and Team 6 got Osama. Doesn't matter to me if he fought back or not. The 911 victims other than Flight 93 had no choice to fight or not so Osama had the same choices...none. Bush gave up on the 911 victims and Obama did not.

"Mastermind" who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Who told you that. We don't have to rely on the word of some liberal schliberal conspeeeeracy theorist. This much is fact. The FBI ADMITS it hasn't a shred of evidence pointing to Osama bin Laden. The central theme of this article is not only a blatant lie, but it is pure mob mentality. How many innocent people have been hung, burned, tortured, butchered, killed because the illiterate mob had a good idea they were the culprit. I realize that this flies over the head of the those who live by mythological dogma however,

Ponder this and go yourself to verify this with the FBI:

"On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” I asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.” http://www.informationclearing...

As Al Gore Discovered, Political Posturing sold as "truth" can be inconvenient. Judging by the number of "I's" in Mr. Obama's emotional and "emergency" press conference after "he" killed Mr. Bin Ladin it is clear that Mr. Obama must have been the point man Mr. Bissonnette was assisting up the stairs. It's inconvenient for Mr. Obama that he has been discovered to have "fudged" the truth with a lot of rather wishful fantasizing about the things "he" did and the way "He" acted. It's sad to see that Mr. Obama is really nothing more than a Chicago Pol cashing in on someone else's work, and it's equally unfortunate that Mr. Bissonnette has had to risk his life and his freedom to bring us the facts. Ironic that Mr. Bissonnette has less to fear from the terrorists than he has from the Fatwa of Mr. Obama's Justice Department that threatens Mr. Bissonnette with durance vile for the rest of his life. It's equally sad to see that YOU Mr. Thompson are just another Obama Party Hack trying to convince us that Buckwheat is indeed Filet Mignon.

The Seal is being payed to do a job and his boss changes every 4 or 8 years. He is not payed to challenge his boss' authority - actually he is noted for quite the opposite. Nobody wants to hear his political viewpoints, nor do we want any other secret volunteer forces to start exposing their own. Serious dereliction of duty.

One little problem. He's a former SEAL and now a private citizen who is simply setting the record straight. That non disclosure agreement was with his employer, the US Navy, who by the way is no longer his employer. Besides, the president broke the secrecy of the mission with his "emergency" announcement. Another fact to remember is that on May 2nd, newpapers were publishing diagrams, photos and knew more details of the oepration than we did at home. If there's any dereliction look no further than the WH.

So does this cowardly criticism of the SEALs and solders that took part in this effort mean that they don't have a right to their own political views or the 1st Amendment right to free speech that they fight and sometimes give their lives for? What kind of crappy hypocrisy is that? If I

were one of them I'd tell you people to put your lousy criticism where the sun doesn't shine.